I. THE GUYNEMERS

In his book on Chivalry, the good Léon Gautier, beginning with the
knight in his cradle and wishing to surround him immediately with a
supernatural atmosphere, interprets in his own fashion the sleeping baby
smiling at the angels. "According to a curious legend, the origin of
which has not as yet been clearly discovered," he explains, "the child
during its slumber hears 'music,' the incomparable music made by the
movement of the stars in their spheres. Yes, that which the most
illustrious scholars have only been able to suspect the existence of is
distinctly heard by these ears scarcely opened as yet, and ravishes
them. A charming fable, giving to innocence more power than to proud
science."[5]

[Footnote 5: _La Chevalerie_, by Léon Gautier. A. Walter ed. 1895.]

The biographer of Guynemer would like to be able to say that our new
knight also heard in his cradle the music of the stars, since he was to
be summoned to approach them. But it can be said, at least, that during
his early years he saw the shadowy train of all the heroes of French
history, from Charlemagne to Napoleon.

Georges Marie Ludovic Jules Guynemer was born in Paris one Christmas
Eve, December 24, 1894. He saw then, and always, the faces of three
women, his mother and his two elder sisters, standing guard over his
happiness. His father, an officer (Junior Class '80, Saint-Cyr), had
resigned in 1890. An ardent scholar, he became a member of the
Historical Society of Compiègne, and while examining the charters of the
_Cartulaire de royallieu_, or writing a monograph on the _Seigneurie
d'Offémont_, he verified family documents of the genealogy of his